Seyyed Hossein Nasr (1933-)

1. Presented by Azeela Aliasa Nur Izzati Mohd Sapperi Edited by Dr. Md. Mahmudul Hasan International Islamic University Malaysia 2011 SeyyedHossein Nasr(1933-)

3. He was born on 7 April 1933 in Tehran, Iran. He is currently working as a Professor of Islamic Studies at George Washington University. He is a famous and prominent Islamic philosopher of today’s world. He writes on Islamic esoterism, Sufism, philosophy, science and metaphysics.

4. He can speak 6 languages – Persian, English, Spanish, French, Germany and Arabic. After moving from Iran to America at the age of 13, he attended the Peddie School in New Jersey and graduated as the valedictorian of his class. He was the first Iranian undergraduate student of metaphysics and philosophy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

5. He obtained a Master’s degree in geology and geophysics and then continue his PhD degree in the history of science and learning at Harvard University. He completed his PhD studies when he was 25. He was the youngest person to become a full professor at Tehran University at the age of 30.

6. His decision to study physics in MIT at the time was because of the desire to gain knowledge of the nature of things, at least at the level of physical reality. However, he began to feel oppressed by the overbearingly scientific atmosphere and discovered that many of the metaphysical questions which he had been concerned with were not being asked, much less answered. So, he started to have serious doubts as to whether physics would give him a deeper understanding of the nature of physical reality.

7. His doubt was confirmed when the leading British philosopher, Bertrand Russell helped answer his question by stating that physics does not concern itself with the nature of physical reality but with mathematical structures related to pointer readings. This marks the beginning of studying other fields in quest of searching the Truth. He decided to look at other fields of study for his answers by reading and took courses in the humanities, especially those taught by Professor Giorgio Di Santillana, a famous Italian philosopher and historian of science.

8. Among other figures who influenced him are : Rene Guenon Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, the outstanding Singhalese metaphysician and historian of art Frithjof Schuon, Titus Burckhardt, Marco Pallis and Martin Lings

9. Frithjof Schuon is a famous philosopher. • His other name is Shaykh Isa Nur Al-Din Ahmad. • Hussein Nasr has been a student and follower of him for over 50 years.

10. According to Nasr, it was the discovery of traditional metaphysics and the philosophia perennis through the works of these figures which settled the crisis he had experienced and gained an intellectual certitude which has never left him since. With this perspective, he is able to give new knowledge to the students he has trained and who have become scholars and university professors of philosophy in Iran.

11. He was the first Muslim and first non-Western scholar to deliver the prestigious Gifford Lectures titled ‘Knowledge and the sacred’. He won the Templeton Religion and Science Award in 1999. He has received the Honorary Doctor of Uppsala University in Sweden. Awards and honors

12. Hussein Nasr’s lectures and writings are mainly based on the doctrine and the viewpoints of perennial philosophy on subjects such as: philosophy, religion, spirituality, music, art, science, literature, civilizational dialogues, natural environment and architecture. works

13. It is a philosophical concept which states that each of the world’s religious traditions share a single truth – the universal truth. Different religions have their own interpretation of the universal truth based on their cultural and historical context. It is different from religious pluralism in terms of divine foundation as religious pluralism states that various world religions are formed by their distinctive historical and cultural context; thus there is no single and true religion. Perennial philosophy

16. This is an edited book containing a collection of essays presented by some of the major traditionalist writers in a conference held in Peru. • The essays are very philosophical and it requires the readers to think critically and read extra information as the basic knowledge in order to understand the essays. • Some of the essays: -Spiritual Personality Types: The Sacred Spectrum by Huston Smith -The Zodiac of the Soul by Whitall N. Perry - Islamic Science and Western Science-Common Heritage, Diverse Destinies by Hussein Nasr In Quest of the Sacred: The Modern World in the light of tradition(1994)

17. This excellent collection is proof of the contemporary, therapeutic importance of the perennial wisdom and will greatly benefit those in quest of the rediscovery of the sacred in human life.

18. Man has been characterized as homo religiosus. This is similar to the concept of fitrah whereby people tend to search for their creator instinctively. In ‘normal times’ man was good, bad, indifferent, angelic, wicked, but always concrete. This shows man has several personalities. In search of soul, religion is where therapy leads when it takes on hope. Religion helps to ease the burden of someone who is facing with difficulties in life. Some of the issues…

19. Zodiac means the Wheel of Life. A gifted astrologer can tell his predisposition, the inborn strengths and the weaknesses, the potentialities to be developed and the liabilities to be dominated. Hussein Nasr argues that Islam and science when combined together would result in a better life for society.